


never mind about the shape im in

by neonfinn



Category: Danger Days: The True Lives of the Fabulous Killjoys - My Chemical Romance (Album), The True Lives of the Fabulous Killjoys (Comic)
Genre: (dont think there's a tag for this but jet does spiral a bit here as well), (i know im projecting so hard here but it is mildly relevant to the story), (not really mentioned but whatever), (original characters but still be aware several people die/are mentioned dying), Blood and Injury, Gen, Injury, Intrusive Thoughts, Jet Star has OCD, Major Character Injury, Minor Character Death, Nonbinary Jet Star (Danger Days), POV Second Person
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-20
Updated: 2020-09-20
Packaged: 2021-03-08 00:00:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,314
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26556232
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/neonfinn/pseuds/neonfinn
Summary: It's hard to not think about the past as the ashes of your home are drifting through the air around you.
Comments: 10
Kudos: 14





	never mind about the shape im in

**Author's Note:**

> this is my first ao3 post so hell yeah!! but also oh no this is probably the saddest fic i could have chosen to post first so i apologize in advance for that. this is based heavily on the MCR song S/C/A/R/E/C/R/O/W, just bc i cannot stop thinking about that song happening in-universe. like there's straight up lines from the song in this shit i'm that corny whoops. i'm rly proud of this though so hopefully you all enjoy!!

The sun is slowly dipping below the horizon line as you make your way across the open desert sands. Even though the sun’s hardly visible in the orange haze that fills the sky, it’s still a marker of the day’s end. And it’s been a long one, feels as though it’s stretched on for weeks. It began with blistering heat billowing over from the Zone 7 fires, kicked your ass with a dust storm that you didn’t have nearly enough cover for, and concluded with a drac clap that nearly had you ghosted. You can still feel the gritty sand digging into a nasty raygun gash on your arm, bandages too covered in dust to really prevent it from inevitably ruining what little gauze you had left in your kit.

You slow your bike down to a gradual halt up next to a jagged cliff. A cascade of bright light illuminates the sky and striking hues warm your skin as you stand facing the sunset. Despite its warm rays, you can feel the sharp chill of the cold desert night begin to bite away at the heat radiating from the sun-baked sand.

This is your signal to get looking for shelter.

You’ve been out on your own in the desert for a few weeks, scraping by with whatever you can manage. You jumped around with a few crews in the Analog War, but that was purely circumstantial and you’ve no clue where any of them are now. You can only imagine most of those people must be long gone, died in the war or killed in the past few weeks in the bloody aftermath of its conclusion. By making do with what you have and avoiding getting too close with anyone (who knows who you can trust right now), you’ve somehow managed to maintain a pretty good method of survival out in the zones.

But you’d have gotten dusted in your first night if you never followed the advice of those who’ve gone on without you. As the sun sets through the haze, colors looking like the sky itself is ablaze as well, one part of these old memories makes its way into the forefront of your thoughts.

_Move your body when the sunlight dies._

It’s a straightforward lesson that was ingrained in your mind when you were still hardly a toddler (though you used to think of it more literally, dancing and skipping around as your mothers laughed at your childish interpretation). But it’s a lesson that has saved your ass every night you’ve had the displeasure of being subjected to patrols searching for the next body to turn into their paycheck. Which, to your misfortune, is every night.

And while this phrase has become a permanent part of your nightly routine, so have the unpleasant memories that come along with it. Every night, you seek shelter from both the scarecrows and your own thoughts. Every night, they dig a little deeper as you try desperately to cling onto any of the fleeting memories you have of those who you left behind. Those who left _you_ behind to join the Phoenix Witch.

Some nights are better than others, but tonight is one that’s boiled over into something deeper than just old memories. Maybe it’s the painfully persistent reminder of the smoke of the remains of Zone 7 stinging your lungs. Maybe it’s just one of those nights that sneak up on you without warning. Either way, the memories you’ve clung onto like thorns are digging particularly deep tonight as the ashes of your old home fall upon your shoulders.

You can feel the burning of tears behind your eyes as you motor away to a nearby semi-collapsed building that you’ll call home for the night. It’s not much-- doesn’t even have all four walls, much less a ceiling-- but you’re used to sleeping out under cliffs, so more than one barrier is practically a luxury. You can feel your thoughts buzzing in the back of your head as you unfurl your ragged sleeping bag and set up for the night. Before starting the fire, you tap your foot to the ground four times and pile up the kindling you’ve collected. It’s a small ritual that brings you a little relief, but no sooner than you have the fire lit does the anxiety begin to claw its way back with a vengeance.

You pull the tattered old bedroll over your shoulders and shudder, not sure if it’s from the growing cold surrounding you or the prickling thoughts that you can feel climbing back into your mind. Shutting your eyes, you desperately try to think of anything else. Think of the sunset and it’s bright colors, the smell of flowers after a rare rain graces the desert, the soft patter of water dripping onto the vast expanse of sand, the gradual discoloring of yellow sands into something darker, the blood that seeps down into the dirt.

_Fuck._

You try to shake away the image as your mind begins to spiral down into some twisted game of telephone, every thought more distorted than the last. But your mind has already decided where it wants to go and you feel powerless against the flow of imagery. You jump from thought to thought with no control, feel your head spin as the memories that once had no connection begin to weave themselves back into their original context.

And then you’re back in Zone 7.

You can hear the faint thrum of an engine. Not an entirely unfamiliar sound, but you can tell by the look on your mother’s face that this isn’t just one of the crash queens out for a late-night drive. Looking around in mild confusion, you watch your other mom run out of the canvas tent you call home and faintly hear her cry out as she runs past the other nearby tents. It’s hard to make out words through the muffled fabric but you can hear one phrase repeated over and over.

_“Everybody hide!”_

A hand is suddenly on your shoulder and you whirl around to see your mother kneeling down to your height. You’re pretty tall for your age, especially considering you’ve lived in the zones your whole life. It’s always been a point of pride that your mothers have only indulged you in, calling you a little jackrabbit for your strange yet incredibly fast gait due to your height. But now you feel smaller than you’ve ever felt in your life. It feels as though your mother is looking down on you and you feel your head start to rush with an encompassing sense of dread.

She speaks to you. Says something important. For all you remember, these are her last words. The last time she ever spoke to you and you can’t even recall what she said.

But you stand still for far too long, staring into the eyes of a face you can’t quite reconstruct in your faded memories. Though you still know the feeling of the embrace that followed, and the fear that overshadowed any semblance of comfort the gesture once held. And while you were too distracted to know it at the time, that was the last time you ever felt your mother’s hands in your own before they slipped away and she shoved you hurriedly underneath a nearby table.

You peer out from your hiding spot to see your other mom come crashing into the tent through the canvas flaps, clutching her bleeding arm as your mother rushes over to help her. You hear a small promise exchanged through tears and gritted teeth as your parents prepare for something you don’t understand.

_“I’ll keep you safe tonight.”_

A gentle promise that you hardly heard, whispered, yet filled with both love and terror. You don’t know why any of this is happening. All you know is that the sounds of motors and engines have roared up directly next to your tent. All you know is that the thudding _knock! knock! knock!_ on the tent’s wooden door frame can’t be a good sign.

You gasp as a terrifying group of strangers come bursting into your home. Holding your breath, you cower farther back into your hiding spot to avoid any unwanted eyes. You squeeze your eyes shut and begin to count, going higher and higher just like your mothers taught you to do whenever you needed something to keep you grounded.

 _One, two, three._ Heavy boots thud across the desert floor.  
_Four, five, six, seven._ Mumbled words cross your mothers’ lips.  
_Eight, nine, ten, eleven._ A snap is followed by beads scattering across the ground.  
_Twelve, thirteen, fourteen._ Shuffling feet are mixed in with cries as someone is yanked to their feet.  
_Fifteen, sixteen, seventeen--_ “NO!” You hear your mother’s shriek as you open your eyes, peering fearfully between your fingers.

The scene before you is forever burned into the back of your mind.

Your mom is on the ground, hands behind her back as a strange mask is dangled near her face. Your mother is standing, fighting against the hold that the monochrome-clad stranger has on her as she desperately attempts to lunge to her partner’s side. But she can’t escape their grip before the mask is pulled over your mom’s face, obscuring her features forever.

You sit frozen as you watch the events of the next seconds unfold before you. Your now-masked mom is handed a strange device. You’ve seen others in your community carry them. For self-defense they’d always tell you, never really saying what it was since “you’re only a child, too young to worry about that nonsense.” But as you watched your mom point that device at your mother, you knew you could only watch on in horror. Your mother, watching her partner lift a loaded gun to her head, looked you dead in the eyes and screamed.

_“Run, run! BUNNY, RUN!”_

You watched as electricity crackled through your mother’s skull, smelled the ozone and smoke in the air as her body fell to the floor with a sickening thud.  
And you ran.

You didn’t stop running. You burst out of that tent and took off into the fastest sprint you could manage, ignoring the buzzing sound of electric rays nearly missing your head. Ignoring the burn of your lungs as the freezing night air rushed into them while you raggedly hyperventilated. Ignoring the screams that you couldn’t tell were coming from your own mouth until you descended into a coughing fit in the sand.

You don’t know where you are.  
You don’t know where anyone else is.

For all you know, you’re the only survivor from the small group you called a home. For all you know, you're entirely alone in the world. And as you stumble through the sands to find somewhere to rest, you feel your legs burning as though they’re on fire. Your heart is beating out of your chest and your lungs feel like they could collapse at any second. So you let yourself fall. Let yourself sink into the sand and roll over onto your back. 

You’re alone.  
You may as well give up.

You look up at the sky. The same sky you’ve grown up under, the same one you’ve stared at for endless hours since you were a toddler. The same stars that winked back at you when you chose your name when you were little are now pitifully blinking out through the smog as you writhe in the sand. You come to realize your legs aren’t just burning from running, feel the warm blood that begins to pool around your left calf. You hold out your hand to trace the same old constellations you’re used to, gritting your teeth as you attempt in vain to distract yourself from all the inputs that are screaming at you simultaneously.

It’s just you and the sky, all alone in the vast emptiness of the cosmos.  
And then you see it.

A small streak of light flickering by in your view. A little shooting star, hardly peeking out from the smoke that’s filling the sky. It may be a satellite but for all you care it doesn’t matter. You feel silent tears begin to trail down your cheeks.

You shut your eyes and make an impossible wish as your childhood dies.

Blinking back awake, you feel the warmth of rising sunlight begin to inch its way across your body. Gradually, you sit up and rub your eyes-- still burning with the sensation of tears that you can’t afford to cry-- and start about getting ready for the new day. It’s already late, the sun beginning to crest its way over the horizon, and yet you still take the precious time to sit for a few minutes and regain your bearings.

You’re in Zone 6, not Zone 7. You’re 16, not just a little kid. You’re mostly uninjured, not bleeding out in the cold sand. But there are some constants.

You are alone. You are shaking despite yourself. And you are crying.

Maybe not the racking sobs that threatened to knock you off your feet all those years ago, but you’re crying nonetheless. You’re still far too dehydrated for it to be much more than pitiful, dry, choking shudders that make it hard to breathe. But as you struggle to stand, gather your things, and head out to your bike to start the next day, something unexpected happens.

A single tear falls from your eye as you blink.

It splashes down into the sand beside you and you watch the small spot darken before-- almost instantaneously-- it evaporates back away as the wind begins to blow. Ashes gently fall around you, the breeze having kicked back up more smoke from the North where your old home lies the fallout of BLi’s bombs.

You leave your dream behind and drive away.

**Author's Note:**

> i am sincerely sorry <3  
> feel free to yell at me abt this shit on tumblr @alltheangelssay-uwu


End file.
